


You messed with my heart too long, that was a big mistake

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie is very nice in this, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluffy Ending, M/M, and he shows it too, bev's abuse is mentioned, he doesn't, richie accidentally burns something and is scared Eddie will react like his ex, though obv not between Eddie and Richie, trigger warning: mental abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When Richie accidentally burns his food right at the same time as Eddie arrives home, he fears he's in for a verbal beat down. He's used to that thank to his ex-boyfriend, who mentally and emotionally abused him before Richie realized  what he was doing to him. Once Eddie works out what is happening, he is quick to assure Richie he would never treat him in the same manner.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 15
Kudos: 151
Collections: Anonymous





	You messed with my heart too long, that was a big mistake

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: this whole story is about Richie thinking back to his ex and how badly he was treated, so please don't read this if you don't like reading about abuse! Bev and her psychical abuse is also mentioned a few times.

Richie, in all fairness, has never had any confidence in any way, shape or form. He’s not sure why that is. His mom and dad were good, loving parents that indulged into his secret little hobby’s, and when Richie at age 24, a fresh college drop-out, told his parents he was going to take a gamble and try to make it as a comedian, they supported him wholeheartedly. Of course, they were a little disappointed that he never got a degree in case things in the comedy field didn’t work out, but they were convinced of Richie’s talent. They were truly the best parents anyone could ever wish for, at least in Richie’s mind.

The losers were also nothing if not supportive towards him, though they had been long gone before Richie turned 24. They made fun of him sometimes, on the occasions where a joke ran too far or failed miserably, but they also made sure that Richie knew how much they adored him in reality.

Beside from getting scolded at every now and again by Eddie or Stan, about his hygiene or lack of self-awareness, they also never tried to change him to fit their wants. For some unknown, nonsensical reason, they liked Richie with his flaws and all.

Truly, Richie has no inkling as to where his insecurities came from, but he does know that he never let them stop him from doing anything when he was still friends with the losers. Quite the opposite even, if he got nervous about performing in front of his class, he would loudly ask to go first, laughing boisterously and slouching against the teachers desks, pretending like the activity wasn’t even a blip on his radar. When Henry’s taunt would hit a particular soft spot, and Richie felt the urge to sulk or mope, he’d double down on the thing Henry found annoying, and get a bloody nose for his troubles.

He fought hard to be ready to perform in front of people that weren’t the losers or his parents, and the losers departing from Derry just made that worse. With the losers, he felt confident enough to try and be himself, without them, he saw himself as useless in every sense. His very first live performance sucked, and in retrospect he’s really glad none of the losers were present because within five minutes of walking on the stage, he had forgotten his lines and threw up in full sight of the audience.

If his mother hadn’t persuaded him into trying again a few months later, and that one actually working out, Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier would have been buried before it began.

But that was before all the progress Richie made in all the years he’s been doing comedy. Despite having the occasional setback, he mostly outgrew throwing up before an act, and he could objectively look at himself in the mirror and conclude that he wasn’t the most hideous person the world had ever had the displeasure of seeing.

In fact, according to people on his twitter page, he was being described as hot and possessing a form of appeal that drew people in. He didn’t find himself good looking by any means, but there was a huge difference between hating everything about himself, and accepting that he was not as hideous as the beast from the Disney fairy tales he was a big fan of as a kid.

And then, in the prime of his mental health, he had met David, and every ounce of self-worth faltered like snow under the burning scorch of the sun. It only took five weeks for David to absolutely destroy the very thing Richie had toiled at for over twenty years.

David was his first boyfriend, who he met just shortly before his thirtieth birthday, and he took more than advantage of that. The first night they first laid eyes on each other, after one of Richie’s shows, David had walked up to him at a bar and promptly declared his show was absolute shit.

Normally Richie would feel hurt by these comments and would pretend to brush them off as if they were never uttered, but something about the way he said it caused Richie to laugh so hard he snorted part of his beer through his nose. It wasn’t until he saw Eddie with Bill and Mike at Jade the Orient ten years later, that his quarter fell. In the beginning, David had reminded him of Eddie. It wasn’t until much later that it became clear David’s intentions were not as innocents as Eddie’s.

Richie assumed the guy was pulling his pants, because who would dedicate their time to flat out insult someone they had never met, and so he had greeted him and bought him another beer. David wasn’t particularly funny, and he never laughed at Richie’s jokes throughout the night either, but he was very eloquent and could keep up with Richie’s conversation topics, though he always seemed to be able to turn and twist the subject so that it gave away another one of his qualities.

By the end of the night Richie never expected to hear from him again, and he was okay with that. His conversation partner had been interesting, but not to the point where Richie wanted to know everything about him or see him again.

David felt otherwise, as thanks to a mutual friend of theirs, he’d found Richie’s number, and when he texted him to ask him on a date, Richie had been too thrilled that someone was interested in him to containplat if he even wanted to go.

That same day the date took place, David had granted himself the title of boyfriend, and Richie went right along with him. They never officially verbally agreed to date, but they held hands and David slept over most nights then not, and his mother got so happy that she saw him with someone that things progressed naturally.

At first, Richie didn’t notice that David was influencing him in a negative way. He only had one close friend, Steve, who was simultaneously also his manager, and he constantly praised David for making Richie a changed man. Because Steve saw it as something positive, so did Richie.

His voice got progressively stiller, as David would ream at him multiple times a day that he was annoying everyone around them with his booming voice, and that he was an attention-seeker who would do anything to get the limelight on him. Richie practiced his voices less and less when David started to critic every aspect of them every time he would overhear him. It got worse once they started living together full time.

‘Hey Rich, no voices? Come on I want to know if you’ve improved over the years, let us hear it.’

He cut off all fatty foods when David glanced at his plate and grimaced, asking if he was really going to eat everything on the plate. He didn’t say it in so many words, but Richie could connect the dots that led him to believe David found him too fat. Lying became a sort of second nature to Richie, as he dared to eat a small pack of chips when David was away, and deluded him the next day by stating he hadn’t eaten any. Sometimes, at times where David thought Richie was away, he would observe him going through their trash to catch Richie in the lie. He’d fight tooth and nail to deny the accusation, and never admitted to it.

David complained just about everything Richie did, including the way he held his towel whilst drying the dishes, ‘For god sake Richie don’t rumple up, hold it in your palm and open it up so you can get to the surface more.’ When Richie tried to joke that David’s way didn’t necessarily mean the best way, he’d yelled that Richie was an ungrateful bastard and that if he had to do it his way because the way he was doing it was useless.

Useless, that was a word Richie learned to associate with himself as whatever he did would get dragged down by David, until there was barely any Richie left. Once again Richie began getting stage fright, worse than when he was a child, and on one evening David witnessed his total bomb of a show, and told Richie he had pretended he didn’t know him to the people watching. That hit so hard, the fact that someone was disgusted to be linked to him, that he stopped writing his own comedy and hired someone to do it for him.

There was so much negativity surrounding him and David, but when Richie tried to address his problems, David would make him seem like he was the one that was crazy. Like he was seeing things that were not there. David rolled his eyes and waved off any of Richie’s attempts to defend himself, but then denied doing it after the fact.

‘You’re a loser Richie, I can’t believe you’d be so stupid to take my ribs seriously. Aren’t you supposed to be a ‘comedian’? You’d think you’d know what’s a joke and what isn’t.’

A can of coke being set down too hard on their dinner table was enough to get David off of the couch, where he’d been watching football and ordering him around, and into the kitchen, striking a tirade that Richie was ruining their furniture with his fumbling. Richie was constantly on edge that he was doing something wrong - and he was according to David -. He avoided David as much as he could, but the latter would find something to fault him on regardless. Life had transformed into a prison cell.

Later Richie would scold himself for not leaving, but how could he? David manipulated him to the point Richie truly believed he was doing all of those things wrong, to the point where he was the one crying and begging for David’s forgiveness. He was gaslighted, manipulated and blackmailed at the same time, with gifts that weren’t a one-off after Dacid crossed a line too far, and they often contained a very expensive item that Richie had eagerly awaited for a long time. Richie felt like he owed it to David to stay, if only for all the money he had spent on him.

There were days Richie would get so furious he was prepared to scream back at David, to let his anger be set free and unleashed upon the one person who deserved it, but then David would show up with a gift out of the blue, or would grant him a loving caress, and Richie was gone for him again.

Not to mention that Richie’s self-esteem had sunk so low, he wasn’t ready to face a world without having David there to guide him along with things.

Barely five months before Mike’s earth shattering phone call, Richie ran out of all mental capacity to deal with the torment a moment longer, and packed his things, disappearing on a cold blistering night. David called him, of course, but Richie was a coward, and never answered the phone.

He only sent David one text to tell him it was over, and then promptly blocked his number without waiting for a response. He heard from gossip that David spread lies about him, and told other people about how much of a terrible boyfriend he had been, but Richie never objected to the claims. He agreed with him anyway.

Mike’s call had been, for a large proportion anyway, a saving grace. Reconnecting with his best friends and destroying the thing that loomed over him for so long was liberating, and Richie viciously wished that Pennywise had come back sooner, so that his tortures road would have been that much shorter.

There was no lingering bitterness inside of Richie because of this though, not when his life was finally in the best possible place it could be. Eddie and him got their heads out of their asses, or more like Eddie got out of his and decided to yet again be the brave one out of the two of them, and they started dating almost immediately after defeating Pennywise. In only a week's time, Eddie made the move from New York to Los Angeles, and with him he had brought the happiness Richie had long forgotten he could ever possess.

His marriage with Myra had been just as much a scam as the relationship between Richie and David, and his divorce was swift - no surprise there with the way Eddie always prepared for every possible scenario-, but Eddie almost always avoided talking about it. In a way, Richie was disheartened by that.

It was no secret Eddie married a woman that was basically a mirror image of his mom, and at times Richie caught himself wondering if Eddie had realized how smothering she was or if he had been so hunkering for the normality of life as a straight, married man that he never paid her enough attention too. He wonders if he was the only one stupid enough to not realize the gravity of what was happening to him.

Richie has debated on flat out asking Eddie about it, but, and there’s always a but, that would mean he would have to tell Eddie about David, and he is overcome with a rare form of anxiety, something deeply ashamed nestling in the place where his trust is supposed to be at the mere idea.

Swearing on the holy turtle god that managed to save them from Pennywise’s claws, Richie was originally planning on confessing the whole thing to Eddie on day one of their relationship. He truly was, and he had even conjured up humorous escape alternatives to duck his way under a fire load of questions Eddie was surely about to ask him after. 

He even prepared himself to tell Eddie in Derry, right after overhearing Eddie’s phone call to his wife, feeling empowered that Eddie would come to understand. Bev interrupted before he could, perhaps a blessing in disguise. Before Eddie fully put down his phone, Bev had sweeped in the room, requesting a meeting downstairs to talk. Richie had been helpless to follow and listen intently, and if he was being honest with himself – he wasn’t – he felt a tiny bit of relief that he wouldn’t be subjected to any negative attention. Until Bev started to confess how her life had been before Mike called them.

All at once, a sickening hatred from himself overwhelmed Richie. He was so angry that he had dared to feel sorry about himself, and here Bev was, with a situation that was incomparably worse. The more details Bev entrusted them with – Richie may have promised to never kill anyone again, but he an exception could be made - the more Richie’s food from a few hours before threatened to choke him, and not even Eddie’s cream smoothed hand holding his distracted him.

Near the end, after they’d progressed from such an melancholically topic and began drinking away the booze in their hotel, Richie had drawn Bev’s attention with a call of her name, to either make her smile or to assure her that she wasn’t alone, Stan send him a withering look, as if to warn him not to open his mouth. Stan’s assumption was fair, it was in Richie’s nature to find humor in places there shouldn’t be, and he had no idea about Richie’s past to think otherwise. Still, every time Richie considered telling Eddie, the look flashed in his mind and sewed his mouth shut.

Not telling Eddie hasn’t impacted things the way Richie had predicted it would. Really, Richie was doing fine. Eddie chastised Richie on certain things, but Richie didn’t freak out or experience any sort of flashback. He would be given a peck on his forehead, or a hand running through his hair, and he’d know that Eddie was never mad at him. It was the littlest details that had Richie out of his mind with love, that highlighted just how different Eddie and David were.

By now, Richie had decided he was fine with not telling Eddie anything about David, and the extra weight of keeping something a secret was his boyfriend was just another fee to carry around with him. But life always throws a curveball Richie Tozier’s way when he has finally made plans.

This curve ball comes in the form of soup. A horrendous chicken soup that Eddie cooked up two days in advance, an experiment of different herbs that clashed into a symphony of flavors all competing to be the primary flavor. There are two things to know about Eddie as a cook. Number one is that he is not an impressive cook – and it’s not for the lack of trying - but Richie doesn’t mind. Eating food that doesn’t please his taste buds but getting Eddie in return for it is a fair deal in Richie’s books.

The second thing to note is that Eddie is a lazy cook. He turns the kitchen into a battlefield of different sauces, with jars a million different pots and pans skewed across the stove and no more room to place anything else left. It’s gotten to the point that whenever Eddie is in charge of cooking, they will not even put their dinner on a plate anymore, but instead leave it in whatever it’s made in, because it eliminates dishes to wash. That’s what starts the mess that day in first place.

Richie isn’t an idiot. Yes, he can be dense at times, and when it comes to loving Eddie he’s more than a bit moronic, but he’s not stupid. He’s had to survive on his own – and with someone who didn’t lift a finger - for a long time, thus there was no other way. He’s aware of the danger of putting a metal bowl in the microwave, and how it can cause the metal to heat up and start a fire, and therefor has never been stupid enough to try it. But today, Richie is stressed.

Steve has been calling him all day to try and persuade him into doing an interview for a magazine, and no matter how many times, how loud or agitated Richie says no, Steve still insists. Richie paces annoyed towards his fridge phone locked between his shoulder and ear, so he can take out the metal bowl of soup with his hands, and place it in their microwave without a second thought.

‘Steve I don’t care how much publicity you think it will get me, I don’t want to do it,’ Richie mutters, turning around with his back towards the warming soup. The consistent arguing with Steve has his teeth grinding, his shoulders tense and his anxiety sparked.

Eddie is still out for work, but it’s closing at five pm, the time he ensures he’s at home, and Richie thinks he can hear his car driving up into the gravel parking lot. The absence of his boyfriend is about to be filled, and Steve is yapping away in his ear, not content to admit defeat just yet, it’s maddening.

‘Steve… Steve listen to me, don’t get your panties up in a twist, I have to go. Don’t book the interview. I won’t take any part in it.’ His denial doesn’t put a stop to Steve’s yapping, but at that point Richie is over his nagging. He pinches the bridge of his nose and utters; ’Okay nice chat’, and hangs up without waiting for a response back.

He lets the phone clatter on top of their kitchen surface and says that Steve got the message, if only for the rest of the day. His phone doesn’t vibrate again, leading Richie to assume he has won this round. He can’t help but lean forward so far his head rests against the cold tiles of the kitchen counter, just sighing for one long, extended breath. A night in on the couch with Eddie spooning him has never allured him so much. His back cracks with a satisfying pop as he readjusts his body, and he groans in gratifications.

Their alarm dings loudly in the open concept kitchen, a warning that someone has just entered their driveway. Richie doesn’t need to go look to know that it’s Eddie and his large, black suv, but he wants to anyway. He’s about to walk towards the front door to greet Eddie like he’s a pet that has been waiting anxiously for its owners return – and some would describe him in the same manner - when the air fills with smoke and a rancid smell. It’s barely detectable at first, nothing more but an insentient odor that is unpleasant but not resolute and easy to ignore. But then actual smoke begins to wash it’s way around Richie, and he has a split second of blissful unknowingness left, until the problem dawns on him.

Richie follows the smoke trail, and is shocked to find their microwave steaming and actually crackling, like it’s on the verge of exploding. It probably is. Still, it’s nothing compared to the cluster bomb of fumes that spread throughout the room when Richie actually opens the microwave door and gets slapped in the face with the enormity. It’s a surprise that their smoke detector has yet to erupt.

Instantly, his airways fill up smoke, prickling his cough reflection so tremendously he doubles over in extortion. The coughs rattle his body in a painful manner, his chest and back start to hurt from the brutal movements and the fact that he can’t grasp fresh air no matter how wide he opens his mouth. Objectively, Richie should understand it can get a lot worse - their smoke detector hasn’t gone off, and there are no flames to accompany the smoke and therefore turn their house into a major safety hazard - but a panic he hasn’t felt since David has shut down his logical thinking skills.

A key is slotted into their keyhole, and it turns a first time to leave. Eddie is about to open the door, in give or take in about a minute – it always drags out because despite living here for give or take two years, Eddie still can’t remember this lock unlatches via the left side and not the right – and walk in on an absolute shit show that Richie’s engendered.

So far there was indication, no sign that hinted to Richie he still had leftover, undealt trauma left from his time hanging around David, but now, his only thought revolving around how mad Eddie is going to be, how much trouble he’ll be in once Eddie sees everything, he starting to realize he might not be as over things as he originally believed.

He ignores the way his lung burn, and reaches forward to grab the pot – with fogged over glasses rendering him blind - protection less, not even grabbing the oven mitts to provide some shelter for the warmth. He can’t comprehend how dangerous that is, can only focus on the red lights blaring in his mind, telling him he needs to get rid of the evidence before Eddie gets here and unleashes hell upon him.

Unfortunately, he’s too late. A door unlocks and Eddie enters the house. His feet pad on their wooden floor, brazen and fast, like he’s been waiting for a shot at grilling Richie and he can sense his opportunity to do so has arrived – the motion is so un-Eddie Richie dismissed it as absurd then and there, but a seed of doubt remains -.

With time, Richie comes to learn how to listen to the different footsteps, and he can now recognize who’s walking towards him and in what kind of mood they find themselves in, without taking one look at the person's face.

Eddie’s footsteps, after every work day, drag across their floor, as if a thousand pound weight has been added to his back. The bottom of his shoes wear out a lot faster than Richie’s do, and it drives Eddie nuts because out of the two of them, he’s the one that treats his material objects neater than Richie.

Richie’s always delighted to notice how light his footsteps get after just a few minutes spent with him or the losers.

Now, he is too scared to pick up on such little details. His palms tingle unpleasantly, the boiling liquid burning them more with each second he hangs on. He stands in the middle of their kitchen like a fool, turning his body every which way and letting his eyes dart out an escape plan. The smoke is nowhere near gone, and there’s too much of it for Richie to open a window and it to be blown away. Eddie’s going to notice, there’s no way he can’t.

‘Richie, you won’t believe what this imbecile Josh did at work today. I swear, I don’t understand how some people can get fucking hired sometimes.’

Eddie trudges into the kitchen, his suit wrinkled from a long day of frantically working on a report that should have been finished by some other incompetent coworker. The groves in his face are more prominent today, acquired by the years of unhappiness he experienced with Myra, the ages of his life cut off by the shock of Pennywise's return and the occasional busy work day his job supplies him with.

A nausea craters in Richie's stomach, filled with guilt for turning Eddie’s night off into a stressful event that requires a ton of clean up. Eddie stops dead in his tracks when he notices the mess, his mouth slips shut, the word dying on his tongue.

He’s waiting for Eddie’s frown to deepen, for his lips to cresting into a fury. He’s waiting for the waterfall of insults that will be hurled at his head, each one meaner than the last, honing in on his deepest insecurities and having them exploited because Eddie’s so angry he’ll do anything to strike a verbal blow. And it’ll be worse now, because it’s Eddie. It’s the love of his life doing it now, the one’s approval he seeks most.

Eddie’s the person that knows him inside and out and knows exactly what boundaries to push and prod out to crack Richie open from head to toe. He waits for all that, with his hand still clamped around the bowl of burning hot soup, scorching his palms – by this point, Richie is sure there will be blisters by the time he finally unclasps his grip.

Eddie’s frown does deepen, but it’s not out of anger. ‘Rich, be careful you’ll hurt yourself.’ Richie doesn’t let go, but holds onto the sides of the bowl tighter. Part of him wants him to experience the pain, to let what he did sink in like David’s words always did.

‘Richie’, Eddie says startlingly firm. He’s not trying to approach Richie or the bowl, but he’s capturing Richie’s attention just by his firm voice. ‘Put it down.’

Richie drops the bowl of soup, watching helplessly as it splatters all over their freshly painted walls and the ground. Out of the corner of his eye a flat glob of liquid drips down the wall, dirtying a whole line down to the floor. Richie cringes, his heart beating so fast he could swear it’s about to jump out of his chest, and his mind a mantra of ‘look what you did, look what you did, look what you did.’

‘Fuck Richie, did you burn it?’

And Richie knows he’s caught. He was, up to two seconds ago, holding the evidence right in his hands, but he’s so petrified logic is not operating in his brain at the moment. The only thing he can focus on with great clarity, is that he’s willing to try anything to get him out of a verbal tear down.

‘No..’, he tapers off at the end, leaving his statement much more alike a question than he would have preferred. Eddie raises one eyebrow suspiciously, pointily averting his gaze towards the smoke floating around them.

‘No?’ He asks back equally confused, head tilted to the side. Richie can feel his throat closing up in panic, bracing himself for an onslaught. He doesn’t foresee Eddie’s nurturing and concerned approach. ‘Let me take a look at your hands’, Eddie murmurs tenderly.

It’s technically nothing new, the way Eddie treats him. After Neibolt and Richie’s big coming out, Eddie commenced all his vacation days and flew Richie all the way to Hawaii, for the pure intention of getting him away from any and all consequences. He’d allowed Richie to eat what he desired - within reason of course, there was no way Eddie was allowing Richie to eat pizza at 8 am-, waisted their days sitting by the pool and indulged in Richie unchancy pranks - one of which ended up with Eddie scrubbing out blue glitter out of his hair. Eddie had been kind then, so it shouldn’t be surprising he is in this situation.

It doesn’t take away the fear Richie is left with. David had good days too, days that he was the perfect boyfriend, but that would never last long, and Richie is left to speculate if it’ll be the same thing with Eddie.

Maybe it’ll be hidden in a secret message, maybe Eddie is busy hatching a plan that will utterly deploy Richie from the inside out. Eddie’s hands are gently skimming over Richie’s palms, inspecting the damage without irritating the skin even more. ‘It doesn’t seem like it’s bad. It hurts right?’

‘Yeah’, Richie croaks when he figures out the question isn’t rhetorical. He isn’t sure at the moment why that’s supposed to be good.

Eddie tips forward, stretching up higher so he can kiss Richie’s forehead tenderly. Against his skin he explains. ‘That means the burn isn’t too deep, but hold it under the water still.’

‘No but you know what does go deep?’

‘Nothing if you don’t treat your burns,’ Eddie teases with a smirk. He gently ushers Richie closer to their faucet, and holds his own palm under the stream of water, twiddling with the different temperature taps until he finds one that he deems just lukewarm enough to allow Richie’s hand under it.

The smoke in the air remains unspoken about. It’s almost as if Richie is more important than a potential house fire to Eddie, but that’s absurd. Not only because this is the house that both of them felt was the right one, and subsequently paid a lot of money for, but also because Richie isn’t that special. He’s not even trying to be condensing towards himself, because he truly believes that.

‘How did you manage to do this huh? Idiot.’ Eddie jokes while guiding his hand under the water at the correct angle, his salutation gets smoothed over by a hand ruffling his hair. Coincidentally, or perhaps the exact opposite, a part of the stress Richie accumulated falls away when Eddie calls him an idiot. It helps to underline why exactly Eddie will never be like David, why the two aren’t in the same league of each other even.

When Eddie says idiot, it’s a nickname, it’s a middle school jab when Richie runs too fast and trips over his own feet, it’s the symbolic soothing pat on the back he receives after he can get all of the losers to laugh at his humor. It’s their love langue no one understands, It’s Eddie’s way of hiding how deep his adoration goes with a job that’s unusual to others.

David’s condescending tone alone tipped Richie into the deep end, into a cave that echoed his deepest flaws and slammed it into the cavity in his chest every time something didn’t go according to plan. Idiot for David did not mean the same things. For David, idiot was shoving aside Richie’s concerns, it was disinterested in all his quirks and his passive attitude. He meant what he said without sarcasm.

A first tear tracks down Richie’s cheek. ‘Rich?’ Eddie inquires startled. His hand previously stroking Richie’s curls slides towards his elbow in a smooth motion.

Richie tries to tell him it’s okay, that he needs a minute to regroup but that he’s fine, but instead of that he sobs, more tears spilling over with no regards to him uneasy Richie is to cry in front of someone.

‘Richie shit I’m sorry. Does it hurt that bad? Do we need to go to a hospital? We’ll go right now.’

‘No, no hospital,’ Richie waves him off with his injured hands. Eddie leads his hand back without response, tracking his face to see if he gives away anything. Richie had forgotten his hand hurted in the first place, so he definitely didn’t require any treatment beyond what he was doing already. His tears are the result of being overwhelmed by his emotions, and his default response to that is to cry.

‘If you don’t want me to do that, that’s okay you know?’

Because his hand is incapacitated, he wipes his nose on the corner of his shirt, watching as Eddie’s wrinkles his nose at that. Still, even with the disgusting move on Richie’s part, Eddie leans in closer, molding Richie so he fits in the fold between Eddie’s neck and shoulder. There, he resumes his path of caressing Richie’s hair, and kissing his temple. Richie fists one of his hands in the back of Eddie’s shirt, pressing them as intimate as he can.

‘Hey sweetheart, it’s okay. What’s wrong?’

Richie sobs harder, not particularly keen on telling Eddie why he’s this upset. It’s a difficult topic to talk to anyone about, Eddie and the losers included. There were days that Richie twisted his mind to convince himself that it was all in his head. That David was the best boyfriend anyone could ever wish for, and that the tirades he had to endure was just the cost of that. He was afraid he added things in his mind that hadn’t actually taken place and he created his own narrative.

Apprehension held Richie back, dreading what Eddie’s response might be. He could exclaim Richie to be a complainer that should have praised himself lucky to get the abuse he got, or he could say that Richie was a sourpuss, turning a fly into an elephant.

‘Shouldn’t we get rid of the smoke first?’, Richie questions to stall.

‘Later’, Eddie soothes with another kiss to his temple. ‘Talk to me. Please Rich.’

‘There was this guy I used to date, David.’

Eddie’s head shoots up in bewilderment, his brow furrowed. ‘You never told me about him.’

‘Yeah well we never talk about your wife either and I thought that would mean we wouldn’t disclose our previous hang ups.’

‘Ex-wife. Remember Rich? She’s my ex-wife. There’s nobody in the world I would rather be with then with you.’

‘Stop it you bastard,’ Richie sniffles pathetically. ‘You know I can’t deny you anything when you sweet talk me.’

‘That’s the plan.’

Eddie thumbs underneath Richie’s eye socket, brushing in a hypnotic rhythm that ankers him to reality. If Richie nuzzles into Eddie’s palm, then no one else but then needs to know.

Talking about something that brings forth a lot of anxiety goes smoother with closed eyes, Richie’s come to find, so he does that before revealing what he should have revealed a long time ago.

‘He was.. not so kind’, he chuckles humorless. ‘He really thrived when he pointed out everything I did wrong, liked yelling too.’

‘Rich?’

‘Wait let me finish. If I don’t say it now I’ll never get the courage to again.’ He opens his eyes only to see Eddie nod in agreement, and his face starting to tang a bit red.

‘Sometimes I couldn’t even walk right without him being all up in my ass about it. At parties he would gladly tell everyone embarrassing things I did, or he would pretend like he did all the work at home while really he was the one that did nothing. And the way he spoke to me.. like I was a child and he was a teacher or something. And he had this way of saying things so I’d know I was a breath away from being yelled at, but so that he could still claim he never once raised his voice at me. I guess I was scared you were going to do the same thing after seeing what a major fuck up I am. . He kept insisting I didn’t do things good enough, but I was really trying my best. I fucking swear Eds. I can’t help that my best isn’t good enough.’

The repetitive motion that Eddie kept up during his long monologue abruptly ends, and Eddie instead balls his hands up into two fist, pulling away from Richie to lean on the counter. He bounces on his heels, unable to stand still any longer as he is now the one to squeeze his eyes shut.

‘Eddie?’ Richie implores, the panic from before quickly flooding through his bloodstream and entering every part of his body.

Eddie opens his eyes, and something on Richie’s face must give away what he’s experiencing, because he’s quick to assure Richie did nothing wrong. ‘No, shit Richie it’s not you sweetheart. I love you, you did nothing, nothing wrong.’

He pecks Richie on the lips twice, very softly and barely noticeable, almost a goad to get Richie to cram their lips together tighter. For a long moment, they don’t move. Their lips stay hovering just out of reach, and one of Eddie’s palms slide down Richie’s chest down to his belly and up again. It’s an effort for Eddie to try and generate as much love towards Richie as he possibly can, before his resolve breaks and he has to let his resentment for David out in some way.

‘I’m going to kill him.’ Eddie turns away from Richie, but his hand remains on Richie’s stomach, a connection so they don’t separate. His chest puffs up, almost like he’s gearing up to go fight David right now. He would if he got the chance.

‘Spagheddie you don’t have to do that for me. I don’t even own his number anymore.’

‘I don’t care Rich,’ Eddie’s voice trembles but is laced with a deadly amount of venom. ‘He should have never done those things to you. If I ever see him I’ll fucking strangle him with my bare hands.’

‘It’s fine Eds, it wasn’t that bad.’ The denial burns in his chest. He wondered for a long time if he could qualify what he went through as abuse, not because he was actively hoping to label himself as an abuse victim, but because he questioned if what happened to him was worth being this upset over. In conclusion, Richie decreed it wasn’t. Eddie's eyes snap up, burning behind a sheen layer of glass.

‘He never hit me like Bev’s husband did to her.’

‘That doesn’t fucking matter. What happened to Bev is terrible, but that doesn’t make what happened to you any less dire. Both of you were victims of abuse, save for a different kind.’

Are they comparable? If they were talking about another person Richie would say yes, that both leave lasting scars, but because he’s the subject of the question, he can’t say for sure. He’s not lenient enough with himself to allow such a statement to be made. Bev can suffer from the consequences of her abuse, but from Richie’s perspective, he should be over it by now.

‘Oh fuck,’ Eddie curses explicitly, ‘and I called you an idiot. Richie I’m so sorry.’

Eddie’s little crease that only appears when he’s discontent about something appears again, and he avoids eye contact with Richie. There’s no need for any of that. Richie hadn’t even taken that big of a notice about the word. He was reassured Eddie would never use it as a true insult, and even if he wasn’t convinced of that, the tender way Eddie reacts towards him otherwise would be enough to convince him.

‘No Eddie. I don’t mind, really. I don’t want things to change between us because I told you this. I like our banter.’

He finally takes his hand from under the lukewarm water stream, and dries it on his pants -the water, come Eddie’s prediction, has eased the aflame skin -. With both hands now free, Richie cuddles up closer to Eddie, using his arms to tug him closer. Eddie is still dressed in his suit from work - and it might deem handsome, but it is not very comfortable - but has not mentioned getting changed once, too enraptured with taking care of Richie.

‘They won’t if you don’t want to, but we’re making a deal. If I do something that hurts you, you need to tell me, so I can apologize and tell you I didn’t mean any of it. Are we clear?’

‘Aye aye captain. Shall we pinky promise on it?’

‘No, I’d rather kiss on it.’

They do, and this time the kiss progresses further than just a simple peck. Eddie cups Richie’s face in between his palms, a soft, sentimental smile ruining it a little. It doesn’t matter, Richie still greedily savors the moment as it comes.

‘All those times that you went on stage and rocked that whole performance I was already infinitely proud, but shit Richie, now that you’ve told me I’m even prouder. He tore you down but you spit in his face and said fuck no, I’m still going to be my own person. I’ll never let him treat you badly again. More importantly, you’ll never let him do it again. You’re so strong sweetheart.’

Richie sniffs, ‘why the hell are you still being so sappy? I told you everything already, there’s no need to spawn me further.’ He giggles, and Eddie can’t help but chuckle at the sight too, then he turns serious again.

‘Okay, now let me take care of you. I’m going to clean up, hush I am and you’re not going to lift a single finger, and then we’ll order in, watch tv from the bed and cuddle. That sounds good? We can talk about the heavy things in the morning.’ Richie has been through enough for one day.

‘That sounds perfect Eds.’

They let go of each other, but not before Eddie sneaks in a kiss on his forehead, cheek and jaw.

While dating David, Richie never used the word love. He knew, with manipulated affection and all, that he did not love David. Love isn’t supposed to change us, it’s supposed to accept us, makes us laugh and cry at appropriate times, and cocoon us in her warmth. Love doesn’t change us, but it adds something more to the previous person we were yesterday. Eddie adds something more to Richie every single day, be it by teaching him or standing by his side when he messes up. Richie loves Eddie, and he gets loved back equally as fierce.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on my own experience so please, by all means let me know what you think but don't be disrespectful.


End file.
